Then what happened?
One explanation is given by Jacob Hornberger in his article, The Nazi Mind Set in America, written in 1944. (The complete article is found on the Free Republic forum.) Hornburger wrote:
"In his book The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek warned Americans in 1944 that despite their military war against the Nazis, they were traveling the philosophical and economic road that the Nazis and the communists were traveling. Our grandparents and parents ignored Hayek's warning. Now, we are left with the consequences; a government of omnipotent size and power using its power to kill innocent, peaceful citizens and confiscate millions of dollars of property to feed its insatiable hunger for more power. Today, the number of victims is in the thousands. But at the end of this road lie the concentration camps for the multitudes.
"Can the tide be reversed? Can the omnipotent state be dismantled, rather than simply reformed? Yes. It will take a return to first principles - the principles on which this nation, not Germany, was founded: principles that hold that it is the individual, not the collective, that is supreme; that each individual has been endowed by his creator with inalienable rights; that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any government, including the American government, becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute a new government; and that no individual - his life, liberty, or property - shall ever be sacrificed for the good of the nation."
Think on that. From it arises realization that a certain mind set is now abroad in the land. Call it Nazi if you choose but it really goes by any name that signifies tyrannical rule. The results are no different from any other coterie of tyrants that history books describe. Under domination of this new tyranny shall be lost both the meaning and the promise of the Constitution, which was to defend the people against tyranny, both foreign and domestic.
So what was the Constitution all about? The Preamble speaks for itself. "WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution..."
The following articles tell both of its triumphs and travails in defense of the commonweal.
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